


don't lose sight, forest boy

by HelmetParty



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Gay!Jake, HE IS FARMER MAN, LET JAKE BE A FUCKING GAY COTTAGE BOY!, Past Child Abuse, basically jake is will graham but more gay, if that was possible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 22:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18765376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelmetParty/pseuds/HelmetParty
Summary: jake park was born to a rich family that hated him. he managed to get out, but not in the way he wanted.





	don't lose sight, forest boy

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this months ago but decided to finish it since it was nearly done. not...my favorite, or even good, but hey, cant pass up on a 2K wordcount and the chance to talk about how much i love homesteading and dogs.  
> also fuck jake's dumbass backstory bullshit. can *anyone* at BHVR get creative or is it just 'boo hoo rich boys' from here on out?

The only thing Jake ever wanted was to belong.

Ever since he had been a child, he had been alone. No brothers or sisters, no cousins or family. He had his mother and father and a couple of distant aunts and uncles, but other than that, it was empty. From a young age he found himself surrounded by people, but always found himself alone. He was the chubby Asian kid who was obsessed with horses and ghosts, the butt of jokes and the subject of constant torment. Teachers looked the other way, uncaring or just not understanding of it's impact perhaps. In fact, on occasion they even joined in.

You always hear about the bullied kid who was actually incredibly smart with outstanding grades and test scores, but Jake was none of that. Instead of shining in his studies, his grades plummeted. He struggled. Mathematics was his worst subject, as he had issues with even basic concepts such as addition and subtraction, making multiplication and division nearly impossible tasks for his brain. His head was too full of fear and childhood happiness, or the lack thereof, to care. Because even in those dark times of loneliness and hurt, he was still a child, still full of a light that couldn't be stomped out just yet.

Middle school came and Jake began to realize how awful everything really was. His parents set impossibly high expectations, his peers and classmates bored with name calling, choosing to move towards physical violence. His teachers ridiculing him for his lack of understanding in basic subjects. His mother and father torturing him both mentally and physically. In all corners of his life he had been strangled in, all except one.

Online was a safe haven. Nobody could hurt him. At least that's what he thought.

He had friends online, but something was missing. Some cord was not strung, some wire interrupted. They were the closest friends he had and yet he still felt impossibly disconnected and utterly alone. What had been something of a safe place near the beginning became a desperate plea for attention. Jake worked tirelessly to make friends, to be interacted with, to have some sort of connection or attention from anybody. All he wanted was someone to pay attention to him in any positive way at all.

He began, in his early teenage years, to seek out attention where he could get it. This led him to video chat rooms.

For the first time, he felt truly happy. He would turn his laptop camera on and face it towards his chest as he laid on the ground, too afraid to show his face, and talk. Random people could click on your icon and see and listen, as well as talk to you in your own personal little chatroom. He would rant and rave about video games and school, how gym was hell and everyone made fun of him for being bigger.

“show us your body so we can make our own judgements :)”

Jake, even then, realized. But he did it anyway.

“have you ever seen a guy cum before?”

“no”

“do you want to?”

What had begun as innocent livestreams turned into filthy private calls. Jake would join empty rooms of random strangers jerking themselves off and do whatever they wanted. He would close and lock the door to the guest room and position himself in front of that camera, legs spread and hole open, available to see by anyone who entered. He would jerk himself off, play with himself, show off in any way they wanted. 

It was attention. They were interested and told him he was pretty. Jake, for a few moments, felt special.

Even so, life went on. His parents started fighting and it scared him. He hated his father more than anything in the world. His mother was no saint, but at the time, he had seen only his father's ugliness. It was only once when his mother cried for him to call nine one one did he realize how horrifying it truly was as he hid and cowered in fear underneath their grand piano with his dog.

“Next time I tell you to call the police,  _ do it. _ ”

The video calls had come to a halt. His mother had found a stash of animated porn on his phone, and sat him down to confront him.

He cried.

But he didn't stop. He wasn't sure how, he couldn't remember, but his parents became used to the fact that Jake wrote and drew porn. They didn't question it when they found his online stash of websites and links, nor did they care when they learned he was gay. Maybe out of love, but likely out of quite the opposite.

Jake became a rebel. His parents had given up on setting rules or expectations but still, Jake found ways to make them punish him. He  _ wanted _ them to. He had found out they were planning to have another child, one that would rightfully take over as heir to their great big business. He was fine with that, but deep down, it made something snap inside of him. A cord was cut, and the day he found out, there was no turning back.

“Don't you think your parents are stressed? They do own-”

“I don't give a single fuck what they are! They ruined my fucking life and it would only be a good thing if they just dropped fucking dead.”

The well dressed woman sits back in her chair and looks at Jake with honest, caring eyes.

It was all excuses, and Jake had had enough of them.

“I hope they die. I'd take their whole shitty fucking business and give the money to the people they oppress everyday.”

“Do you feel like you're being oppressed, Jake?”

“I'm the son of two rich, high class assholes. Of course I'm not oppressed.”

Other people had it worse.

“Just because you have money doesn't mean you can't be oppressed, or feel like it.”

“Oh, boo hoo, poor little rich boy. Give me a fucking break. I'm not suffering because I'm rich. I don't even have money! I have to ask my mom to buy grocheries, and even then she makes me feel like a fucking asshole.”

“Well, just because you're rich doesn't mean you can just recklessly spend money…”

“Food isn't reckless. People are out there dying, suffering! If my own mother makes me feel like a fucking burden for the bare essentials, how do you think she's treating the poor?”

It killed him to hear the exact people who were being kept as slaves defend their slavers.

Highschool came. After ninth grade he enrolled in online school, only after crying and begging for a whole year to parents who didn't care. It was only after he had gotten out of the public school system did he realize how truly hellish it was everyday, so alone, physically vulnerable.

He was so quiet he could barely talk anymore.

He became tired and infatuated with isolation. Rarely did he leave the house or open his mouth, and when he did, it was only if he was forced. In the quiet confines of his room he developed the urge to disappear. He researches farming and construction, ways to live off the grid and completely alone. He looks at pieces of land and different countries that would be ideal to suddenly vanish in, and the legality of such. He dreams of being kidnapped or killed, tortured and taken, but those dreams are drowned out by the will to outlive his parents. His awful, unloving parents, obsessed with their legacy, their money.

He hoped they would burn.

“Family meeting” he calls on his eighteenth birthday. Three of them sit at the kitchen table. Jake, a tower of paper in his hands, looks his parents into the eyes with great determination.

“Give me one hundred thousand dollars.”

They laughed.

Jake shows him the documents he found.

It went just about as well as you would think. His parents screamed and yelled, threatening to call the police and get him in jail. They laughed in his face and pushed the neat stack of paper to the floor, and for a second, they might have thought they had him.

So Jake did what Jake does best. He shut up, went to his computer, and privately published some papers.

It wasn't incriminating, no, but it was evil nonetheless. The press had a field day with it and Jake could only sit back and watch as republicans and company executives defended the company, denying even the credibility of the document at all. 

He was awoken the morning after publishing the papers with a violent jolt. 

“Get up.”

He yawned and sat up, his heart beating fast in his chest.

“Take this and  _ get out. _ ”

A debit card. His old card, in fact. He hadn't seen that in months.

“Does it-”

“Yes. You have until six to get the fuck out of my house.”

He should have felt disgusted his parents cared more about a company then their own son, but it was quite the opposite: he felt goddamn invigorated. For the first time in his life he had money and a mission. It hurt, but at the moment, he pushed it down. It was the least of his troubles - in fact, he had none. Not a single one. His head was only full of possibilities. He was an adult now, there was nothing standing in his way.

He packs a single bookbag. A few clothes of course but it's mostly filled with books, notebooks and things of the sort. The clothes he brought were ones he bought with the money he made working part time. He never liked those expensive clothes that his parents forced onto him, didn't fit right, so instead, it was all what  _ he _ wanted to wear.

He books a one way ticket to Washington state. He doesn't know exactly where he's going but he knows he wants to live there for sure. He checks online to see if the pieces of land he had been looking at have been bought, and all except for one had been taken. The little plot was a modest five acres, a tiny cabin on the property that looked rickety and old. It had no water, no electric, no nothing. It was in the middle of nowhere as well, and because of these things, the price was quite low. A decent asking of just below thirty five grand.

He calls the owner instantly, and offers to pay in full upfront.

Sold.

The excitement only heightens in him. Soon he was to be not only away from his parents, but a homeowner at only eighteen. He starts thinking about dogs, wondering if the first thing he wanted to do was adopt one. But he stops himself: first things first. Get on that plane, get a car, and buy that property. He could easily find a shitty motel to stay in for a while while things got settled.

But he was happily anxious about it all.

The time comes and he calls an Uber to the airport. His parents are nowhere to be seen, somewhere else in their big, stupid house, too angry to even say goodbye to their son for (hopefully) the last time. 

He doesn't look back.

\--

“When can I start moving in?”

“Now.”

Jake had never been so happy.

The piece of land was a lot more choppy than the photos, but it was fine. The cabin was decent, at least for now, and with a little work and some elbow grease it would be just right. The first day he arrived he bought a new car, a nice pickup that would easily haul whatever he wanted. Check. He signed some papers and had a boring talk about hunting with the old man who had owned the plot. Check.

He had accomplished nearly everything he needed to and with only one night in a motel. Maybe his luck was truly turning around.

He walks with the man back to their cars and waits until he drives away to pull his measly one bag from his car. He runs, nearly like a girl to the cabin, way too excited for his own damn good. He sits on the counter and drinks from a water bottle, simply enjoying existing there for a moment, thinking of all of the things he was going to do. Solar power would be nice...some lights here, some plants there. Maybe a couch or something.

Dog. Dog was next, and maybe some food.

Just as soon as he came Jake left. He promised himself he was going to hold out for at least a week before he got a dog so he could settle in first, but he simply couldn't wait. He hops back into his car and gets going. 

He does groceries first. Nothing that needed to be refrigerated, not until he could hook up solar. He had spent so long living on granola and peanut butter already he felt right at home. While he's at it, he picks out some food and bowls for a dog, leash too. He wasn't sure what size dog he would adopt, so he holds off on that for now.

The shelter is next. It's is nearly an hour out but it was going to be worth it.

\--

Maybe he really had snapped.

Pickle was her name. Something you would call a cute lap dog, but no. She was a tremendous beast; a Tibetan Mastiff. A fucking Tibetan goddamn Mastiff. The dog could nearly not fit in the backseat of his truck. 

She was massive, but funnily enough, had no teeth.

“She eats food just the same.”

“Like...kibble?”

“Yup! She can eat anything. Her jaw is strong so she doesn't need soft food or anything.”

A timid little beast she was, too. She was surprisingly gentle, but when the woman demonstrated her bark...

Well, let's just say teeth or no teeth, you're going to run.

“She comes when you call her. Never had her not. Plus, you can take food from her without growling, so if she's chewing on something bad you can just take it.”

She sounded perfect. And she was.

“Come on Pickle” he calls to her as he hops out of his truck, carrying all of his groceries at once like a mad man. The dog sniffs around a bit but ultimately follows Jake loosely. On the walk to the house there is a bunny in the yard and for a split second he thinks, ‘fuck, she’s going to chase it’, and watches as the dog sees it and continues on.

Things were going to be better than he thought.

He opens the rickety door to the cabin and mutters a ‘home sweet home’. He sets the groceries down on the floor and holds the door open for Pickle, who comes trotting in, nose a little dirty from sniffing around.

“It’s not much,” he starts saying to nobody in particular, unpacking his groceries and setting them into baskets he had bought. “But it’s your home now.”

Pickle looks up to him, tongue hanging out of her toothless mouth, a dopey but pleased look on her face.

\--

The months pass by like hours. The days fade together, then weeks, then months. If it wasn’t for his phone, which had no service and only a few offline apps, he wouldn’t even know how long it had been. He has a job up at one of the farms just up that a ways sometimes, helping them with their horses every now and then. It keeps him going. He put the money left over in savings, saving it for taxes and if his truck breaks down or if one of his dogs get sick. 

He had become reclusive, which was his goal, but much more than he intended.

When he went to places he could use his phone he didn’t. He didn’t check messages at all; no emails, no texts, nothing. In fact, he avidly avoided it. The lack of human contact hit cold. He had his dogs, which he would rant and ramble to sometimes about this or that, but it was lonely. When he did speak, his voice came out grainy and quiet, as if he was going mute.

He probably was, if he was being honest.

He didn’t even go see a doctor when he sliced himself with a knife so deep his skin went blue. He sewed himself up and carried on. He didn’t go to the doctor then, and he certainly wouldn’t go now that he was hearing things in the woods.

Whispers. Breathing. Rustling.

It’s nearly four in the morning when it happens again. Bunny is the first to bark, and it startles him from his nightmare. He gasps awake, quickly hurrying to the living room where the black labradoodle barked and growled out the window. Jake grabs his boots and walks over to her, petting her back and looking outside as he tried to find what she was howling about.

“What is it, girl?”

He had never seen her so feral. She looked downright scary for a dog who was afraid of chihuahuas. 

He grabs a flashlight and a baseball bat and heads outside. Bunny pushes past his legs like the little defiant shit she was, and runs howling into the darkness.

“Bunny! No! Come!”

Pickle hides behind Jake’s legs and stays directly next to him. In the house still lies Velvet, who sits in her corner, growling at the window outside. 

What has got all of his fucking dogs bothered tonight? Don’t they know it's four in the morning?

He heads out in the direction Bunny bolted in. He only hopes and prays there wasn’t a bear or a coyote and that it was just a rabbit or something. His flashlight barely covered any area, so he scans and squints for any sign of her.

“Bunny! Come! Bad girl!”

He calls time and time again. As per usual, the fluffy shithead doesn’t come. She was defiant but usually well behaved as long as she didn’t see a squirrel or a rodent. She was the only one of his dogs he had to put on a leash at all times. Sometimes it was okay to have her roam during the day, but all to often she had become lost or simply refused to come home and he was forced to trek out looking for her.

It was different at night. She had only gotten out once and he was lucky he smashed eggs for the chickens that day and she stopped to eat them.

Pickle followed close enough that her hair grazed against his legs. He realized that he was still in his underwear and a white tank top and silently he prayed he didn’t wander into his neighbors yard looking like this.

“Fuck.”

He stops in his tracks. He’s lost sight of Bunny’s tracks and his house. He needed to go home, grab another flashlight and put on some real clothes. It was fucking cold, and he would never find Bunny like this.

He starts the trek back, albeit terrified and a little shaken up about the idea of Bunny being lost at night, chasing something that very well might kill her. He liked to think he was unfeeling to an extent but Jesus, if any one of his dogs died he didn’t know what he would do.

He reaches his home after a few minutes and sighs to himself. He glances over to his chicken coop, and walks by it before heading in. It was undamaged, the fence was still up and he peeks his head in and uses the flashlight to see around.

All safe and a little pissed he was bothering them.

“Sorry,” he whispers, stepping back out, glancing over the fact he apologized to chickens. 

He trots back to his house, kicking the door open, too rushed to care at the moment. He needed to make sure he was okay. He quickly runs to his bed and puts on a pair of jeans, a real shirt and jacket. He grabs his good flashlight and swaps his bat for a pocket knife. It was moments like these where he wished he had a gun.

He runs back outside when he hears a blood curdling howl. It was from deep in the woods and it nearly sounded like a damn mountain lion, but it was...weirdly distorted. It wasn’t Bunny, either. 

It sent him still for a moment. Pickle whined.

“It’s fine,” he says aloud, trying to sound convincing to nobody but himself. 

He hauls ass into the woods. 

He’s not sure how long he ran for, but it wasn’t long. His run turns into a jog into a walk. He tries to remember where the sound was, but ends up forgetting which way he turned and where he went. He has to stop and look around for a minute, desperately trying to find a landmark in the darkness to prove he was still even on his land.

“Shit.”

His hand absently goes down to pet Pickle. It was a thing he did to comfort himself.

Gone.

“Pickle, come,” he says at first, then yells it. “Pickle! Come!”

He stand silent in the eerie woods, the flashlight flickering on and off. He hears no crunching indicating she was coming, nor did he hear...anything at all.

Something was wrong. Something was  _ seriously  _ wrong.

He kicks tail in the direction he swore he came from. He tries to backtrack from his tracks, but his flashlight goes out and fuck, he forgot to bring a backup.

Jake wasn’t one to get scared easily, but to be honest, he was fucking terrified. The fog had built around him and it was choking him up. He had seen the woods foggy before but this time it was thick and heavy as if it was coming from a damn smoke machine. He coughs and hacks through it, trying to run as fast as he could when he smacks face first into a tree. He jumps backwards, dizzy from the impact, head instantly aching with a sharp pain.

It takes a moment for him to recenter himself. His hand holds his forehead with pressure, a thick liquid he could only assume was blood dripping down his nose.

While recovering from the hit, there is a rustle behind him. A few twigs snap, a few leaves crunch. Absentmindedly, he calls out to it. 

“Pickle. Bunny. Come.”

He’s holding his bloody nose now, turning around to try and see where he heard the sound. 

Nothing.

“Girls, come here, I want to go home, please.”

It doesn’t click yet. But looking out in that darkness, unable to see even a few feet in front of him, an overwhelming wave of looking into the eye of something he couldn’t see hits him. 

He had never felt more terrified than in that moment. The world seems to still and silent, and the presence of something washed over him like a warm rain.

He books it in the other direction once his legs can move.

Heaving the yellow fog he nearly falls over. He had ran until his lungs burned like fire and his legs ached with pins and needles. There is blood all over his face, his eyes start to go hazy. He should have hit his house by now. He should have hit  _ something  _ by now,  _ anything  _ at all. It felt like the woods go on forever and ever, and just as he’s sure he can’t stumble anymore, he sees a glow in the distance.

He hopes his girls are safe there, but he can’t remember their names in that moment. All he sees is the light, and he works his way there as much as he can before his eyes go dark.

**Author's Note:**

> pickle and bunny fanart when?


End file.
